Computeam growth driven by Redstor

Introduction
Founded in 1998, Computeam is an education ICT specialist based in North West England. Computeam focuses specifically on primary schools and offers a range of services for schools including IT support, cloud-based services, IT consultancy and training.

The business began as a father and son team and has grown well throughout the past 16 years. Today, Computeam has a team of 33 dedicated staff and supplies ICT services to over 104 contracted and 250 non-contracted schools.

The team and the business are well regarded throughout the North West and have a strong reputation for ICT excellence and quality of service within the education market.

Challenges
Technology within schools has transformed dramatically in recent years. In the past, a school’s data usage consisted primarily of word documents, images and occasional interactive whiteboard resources.

The range of technology used within schools for everyday learning has increased exponentially. Today, a multitude of devices are used ranging from tablets, laptops and mobile devices and as a result, the amount of data generated, and needing to be stored, has grown significantly.

Computeam identified this trend and realised they needed a solution to the challenge. Data backup was becoming a critical service and the company needed a trusted partner to help deliver a data backup solution that was proven, reliable and suited to the needs of the education market.

In 2010, Computeam approached Redstor to provide an online data backup service the company could offer its primary school customers.
Computeam had utilised onsite USB, hard drive and tape solutions to store and backup the data from schools. The process was not secure, lacked consistency and appropriate data security measures.

The existing solution also restricted the amount of data that could be stored and backed up. It meant school staff had to be involved in changing tapes each evening and were expected to monitor the backup solution themselves. If things went wrong, the staff in school could be held responsible for not completing their own backups. Engineers often struggled to retrieve files and were often left performing difficult data recovery tasks.

Computeam had traditionally focused on primary schools within the North West of England. The management team had ambitious plans for growth and wanted to break into the market for secondary schools.

Data backup within secondary schools was a growing concern in the education market. The amount of information requiring protection was already significantly higher than primary schools and was growing at a faster rate.

The management team knew a solid backup solution could be their engine for growth and could be an entry point into the secondary school market.
In order to meet the needs of secondary schools, Computeam needed a partner with a proven data backup solution for the education market, a commitment to service excellence and experience of backing up SIMS data.

Solution
In August 2010, Computeam partnered with Redstor to begin offering the Redstor Backup for Schools Service (RBUSS), a fully automated, online backup and data recovery service that simplifies the management of backups for schools.

Andy Cocking, Director at Computeam said, “Redstor were an obvious partner choice due to their pedigree within the data backup market. Their focus on education meant they understood the needs of schools from day one.”

RBUSS automatically protects school data residing across all devices, from servers through to laptops and desktops. Data is quickly and effectively compressed, encrypted and transferred to Redstor over the school’s Internet connection. The school’s data is stored in Redstor’s UK-based data centres and remains encrypted at all times, meeting all education disaster recovery and regulatory compliance guidelines.

Offshore data storage remains a topical issue within the press and the education market. The location of data is even more sensitive when involving student data explains Cocking. “The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) advises schools to store their data within the European Economic Area. This includes data which is backed up and stored by third parties. Schools simply cannot have their data stored offshore, the fact that Redstor have UK data centres and backup facilities was a huge advantage.”

Results
Redstor began working with Computeam in August 2010. In the past four years the partnership has grown to protect about 40 primary and secondary schools. Protected data volumes have consistently grown from 0TB in 2010 to 3.5TB in 2012, 5.1TB in 2013 and 8.1TB in 2014.

“Throughout this time the Redstor backup service hasn’t missed a beat” explains Cocking. He continues, “As a channel partner, Redstor are a delight to work with, they know the education market like the back of their hand and understand exactly what schools need.”

Integrating Redstor’s data backup solution has been a significant strategic advantage to Computeam. Cocking explains, “We knew backup was becoming a critical service, core to schools. With Redstor we got it right from day one, this instils confidence from schools and allows us to offer additional services.”

Over the past few years, Computeam have expanded the range of ICT services offered to its clients within the Education sector. It’s likely some of the customer confidence and resulting sales opportunities and growth has come from partnering with Redstor.

Cocking elaborates, “Effective backup has provided our foundation for growth. Getting this right has allowed us to build effective relationships and sell additional services.”

“When we began working with Redstor we knew backup was important. Our clients now rely on us to ensure their data is securely backed up and that it complies with the relevant legal requirements. This has built client confidence, strengthened Computeam’s reputation in the sector and assisted our strong year on year growth.”